Looking to the Future of Gene Technology

A scientific revolution that is set to transform lives

Imagine a world when large mammals, including humans can be cloned; a place where curing cancer is commonplace. Today, such a vision is not far from becoming a reality thanks to gene technology.

It’s such a revolution that gets people such as Scott Edmunds, the Executive Editor of the Beijing Genomics Institute’s (BGI) flagship publication Gigascience, an expert of gene technology excited.

He sees the future of genomics be split into larger corporations that have a solid investment portfolio, often sourced from Fortune 500 tech players and smaller scale products that will allow medical patients to diagnose and treat themselves remotely.

On the large scale there are companies like the Shenzhen-based iCarbonX — a company created by former CEO of BGI, Jun Wang — that looks to mine large sets of genomic data, among others, for medical research.

Wang told the scientific journal Nature that he is planning to program artificial intelligence to sort through troves of data about human health and disease that for the first time allowed him to collect data at a large scale – an innovative feat that had been extremely difficult, if not impossible to achieve without AI. He added that he was confident that he can get samples and data from one million people in five years. Ultimately, it was his frustration with the slow amount of progress being made with genomics that made him act as noted in an extract in Nature:

“The largest genomic studies offer only subtle hints about an individual’s susceptibility to disease — such as pinpointing a gene that makes an individual only one or two per cent more likely to develop heart disease. So, in addition to mining its customer’s genomes, the iCarbonX alliance will scour biological molecules from various tissues to provide a more accurate and actionable picture of someone’s health.”

“It’s the most hyped company in the field,” added Mr. Edmunds. “They’re aiming to be the Google of medical care…buying out healthcare companies.”

$200 million of the company’s initial funding came from Tencent, the parent company of Chinese social media app WeChat, and has now raised more than $600 million in funding from various partners.

On the other end of the scale there are gizmos making gene sequencing affordable and accessible to more people.

Mr. Edmunds points to the MinIon, a mobile-phone sized, portable and inexpensive DNA sequencing machine produced by British technology company Oxford Nanopore, which has allowed for genomics experiments that were once confined to a lab to take place anywhere. In fact, it could pave way for collaboration between scientists, local governments and law enforcement agencies.

“It’s been used to detect wildlife smuggling, for tracking Ebola the Zika Virus,” he said. Gene sequencing can help track the spread of viruses and bacteria, identifying variants and mutations, and can also show the provenance of say a rhino horn that’s been discovered in an illegal shipment by customs officials.

The company is now developing an even smaller sequencer called the SmidgeIon that connects directly to a smartphone.

The technology works like this: A strand of DNA passes through an electrically charged microscopic hole called a nanopore and produces a change in the current that allows the machine to deduce the genetic sequence of the DNA.

The company sees it being used for remote monitoring of pathogens in an outbreak of infectious disease; the on-site analysis of environmental samples such as that within water, real time species ID for analysis of food, timber, wildlife or even unknown samples; field-based analysis of agricultural environments, and more, according to its website.

As for BGI’s own experiments with gene technology — they once created a smaller, miniature version of pigs through genetic modification as potential test subjects for drugs. Pigs have one of the most similar genetics to humans and a “mini pig” would’ve theoretically helped researchers save on the amount of drugs they needed to use to run the tests. But they’ve shelved that project due to the negative press it generated.

Now they’re making gene sequencing more easily available to doctors, with the sale of a small automated machine that can run genetic tests at the doctor’s office.

“It allows you to tailor your cancer treatment…test for down syndrome, cancer without the need to a special genomics lab,” said Mr. Edmunds.